"What else is annoying in the world besides everything?" Excepting our newly minted president-elect, comedian Jerry Seinfeld — whose net worth is purportedly near a billion dollars — may be the richest man in the country who takes to a stage before a capacity crowd just to complain about how terrible...

Saturday "The Christians": A megachurch opens its doors to a theological divide in Steppenwolf's latest. Through Jan. 29 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted St.; 312-335-1650 and www.steppenwolf.org "The Nutcracker": The Joffrey Ballet premieres Christopher Wheeldon's take on the Christmas...

The 2015 musical "Hamilton" continued to suck up a lot of the Broadway oxygen in 2016 — first during the spring award season and then during the political fallout of the late fall. But theater artists created other, mostly quieter shows that were striking in the depth of their exploration of modern...

The holidays! Peak theatergoing time! What should you and yours see? Let me walk you through some ideas. Perhaps you'd like to snag some ducats to a little show with some buzz — "Hamilton." Well, the daily ticket lottery aside, it's pretty much sold out for the holidays. I recently imagined I was...

Hamilton

“Drunk History” is almost always a subversive delight. But this week’s edition with Lin-Manuel Miranda doing a bombed version of Alexander Hamilton's life is something special. Creator Derek Waters and Miranda don’t waste a second getting transgressive. The episode opens looking much like a recent...

The New York cast of "Hamilton" was not only justified in politely but directly addressing Mike Pence, the courteous vice president-elect, from the stage Friday night, it had a moral, artistic, political and even a business obligation to do so. And what happened at "Hamilton" in Chicago on Saturday...

An audience disruption took place at the Saturday evening production of "Hamilton" at the PrivateBank Theatre in downtown Chicago. According to audience member Brea Hayes of Batavia, who was at the performance, an audience member seated in the front of the balcony shouted profanities and election-related...

Does life suck? At the end of "Life Sucks," Aaron Posner's latest Chekhovian update that brings "Uncle Vanya" up-to-date at a modern country house, an audience member is asked that very question. Chaon Cross and Eddie Jemison, both starring in the production, have collected some surprising audience...

Marc Maron is by trade a performer — a man typically out in front of others, often baring his soul via his confessional brand of stand-up comedy. At 53, Maron has been touring the country doing this exercise in introspection for the better part of the past 30 years. But as he'll readily tell you,...

It's obvious, in a way, that there's a relationship between sex and dance. But what is it? Certainly some choreographers exploit it, often with a wink. Almost all, even when they seem to ignore it, know it's part of what people will see, whatever form the dance might take. But to tackle sex as...

The Joffrey Ballet will return to New York for the first time in over 20 years. The Chicago-based company will perform Krzysztof Pastor's "Romeo and Juliet" at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater, The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. announced Monday. The production runs March 29-April 2 and...

Chicago Dance Crash excels at having fun, at playing. Which isn't as easy as it might sound: To let go and yet venture beyond the silly requires a bit of bite here, a bit of pathos there. It's an approach that Shel Silverstein perfected. And the Chicago-born poet-artist-songwriter makes the perfect...

There's a lot of history bound up in Dance Theatre of Harlem, and not just because it was founded 47 years ago. When the company performed here in 2014, for the first time in many years, it brought works devoted to history: Resident choreographer Robert Garland's “Gloria” celebrated Harlem's groundbreaking...

Broadway

Few musicals have been inspired by accidents that killed teenagers. Even fewer use a coin-operated fortune teller as their sardonic narrator, a mechanical voice that recounts the fate of a girl, decapitated and thus eternally anonymous, found by the side of the track. But "Ride the Cyclone," the...

In his self-help book "Rich Dad Poor Dad," Robert Kiyosaki outlines the competing pull of two father figures in his young life — one was staid, honest and boring, the other street-smart, savvy and exciting. The financial establishment mostly turned up its nose at the book, calling it bogus, trite...

No Broadway theater ever has been physically transformed quite like the creaking, aptly named Imperial Theatre has been revolutionized for "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812," a wildly inventive new musical based on a section of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." Previously staged in a Midtown...

"Les Liaisons Dangereuses" can be a riveting drama of power, sexual conquest and desperate vulnerability. Or it can read as smug, high-end, hyperliterate erotica with an empty heart and an unpleasantly creepy undertone. Stephen Frears' hit, Oscar-winning "Dangerous Liaisons" movie from 1988 with...

It's been a busy year for Lears, with Shakespeare's monumental tragedy the choice of multiple major theaters to mark the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death. But this just might be the "King Lear" to rule them all. After 25 years away from the stage, working in the hurly-burly of British...